Scootawolf didn’t want to begin: suddenly, the thought of blasting away the forest repulsed her. Every fibre of her – every bone and muscle – rejected the idea of harming something so rare and beautiful as the crystal forests of the Buried Continent.
She looked at the Emberwolf. Somehow, it seemed different.
Nothing about it had changed, as such: its body still burned, and its eyes remained two pools of light. Yet it was like when Scootawolf had drunk the hot cocoa in her aunts’ bedroom and had seen, for the first time, the true nature of fire. She saw, now, what the Emberwolf really was. It was a puzzle that she hadn’t noticed it before.
The Emberwolf was lonely.
In its burning eyes, Scootawolf spied something distant, and profoundly cold. The way the beast looked at her, it was as though it had spent a hundred years without a friend, or even an enemy. It had no-one. It had no-wolf else to talk with.
Scootawolf could have kicked herself. How had she not seen it? How had she not understood that the beast’s loneliness was as clear as its claws and the rubies in its tail? Right then, she longed to rush over to the Emberwolf, stroke it, hug it, and whisper in its ear that everywolf deserved a chance, and that everywolf deserved a friend. In her mind, Scootawolf thought, too, in lightning-clear detail, of the past few weeks and months. She thought of lying awake in bed, daydreaming of Mom and Dad embracing and putting away their arguments. Then she remembered all the days and nights she had spent alone in the fortress of her bedroom, instead of being out with her friends, playing, laughing and exploring…
Out of all the wolves to share its secrets with, and all the ponies it could have showed the wonders of the Buried Continent to, the Emberwolf had chosen her.
There had to be a reason for that.
There had to be.
Dad’s words sounded in Scootawolf’s head. “Draw upon our love, and the love of your friends, and show the Emberwolf another path.”
Scootawolf stood up straight. Her mind was set: she would not destroy the forest. Not a single crystal would be harmed. Rather, she would show her new friend something better than destruction and loneliness.
“Scootawolf?” the Emberwolf said. “What is wrong? Why are you walking away from me?”
She had turned her back on the Emberwolf. She walked from the edge of the forest and up the hillside.
“Scootawolf!”
The Emberwolf called from behind but Scootawolf didn’t peer back. Her walking became jogging and her jogging became a run, and she dashed through the ruby grass under that immense ceiling of glow-worm stars. What was she going to do? She didn’t know yet, she couldn’t think, but her heart insisted it would be enormous.
“Scootawolf! Come back!”
She ran faster.
“Don’t leave me!”
Now Scootawolf was near the top of the hill, and she heard the Emberwolf bound through the grass behind her. She wanted to tell it – tell her, rather – that there was nothing to worry about, that she had a friend in her, of course she did, of course, of course! She was Scootawolf, and she didn't abandon her friends. Yet, there was too much running in her paws to stop and explain this. Volcano-fury exploded through her blood. From somewhere, everywhere, she smelled liquid rock and burning crystal – and on her tongue, she tasted the scorching air of the Buried Continent and it filled her with life. Her wolfish, fiery eyes blazed with so much light that her vision threatened to turn white again. “Keep watching!” she said over her shoulder, with words half yelled and half laughed.
At the top of the hill, she drew in a joyous breath—
Released it—
And from her jaws burst fire, high, high into the air. It was the fire of her heart. Into the flames she poured the power of her friendship: she thought of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, of how they had always been there for her, even during the times when they hadn’t understood what was wrong with her. She thought of Aunt Holiday and Aunt Lofty. She thought of Mom and of Dad. Most of all, she thought of Rainbow Dash, who was a pony she loved so much, and who loved her back with equal strength, that Scootawolf’s Heart of Hearts had taken on Rainbow’s shape.
It wasn’t ordinary fire. It didn’t vanish, but rather it formed a path which sloped upwards into nothingness. It wasn’t merely orange and yellow, but all the colours of a raging rainbow, and as bright as jewels caught in sunlight: emerald, sapphire, topaz, amethyst. Each colour had a distinct scent. The green smelled of adventure. The red smelled of candy and friendship. The blue had the same scent of swimming in a lake with Mom and Dad, one happy afternoon on vacation two summers ago.
Without pausing to think, she leapt onto her rainbow of flames – a firebow – and ran into the air.
“Scootawolf!”
Still, she didn’t stop, but breathed out another firebow. It was wider this time and as long as a hoofball pitch. It curved through the air and around the hill. She peered down at the Emberwolf. The beast couldn’t join her – the firebow disappeared a few paces behind Scootawolf as she ran across it – but the Emberwolf sat on the hilltop and peered up at her, jaw agape, eyes wide as she feverishly drank in the impossible sight.
Scootawolf let out a joyous laugh. She imagined Rainbow Dash soaring through the air beside her.
Drawing in her deepest breath yet, she breathed out an entire sky’s worth of rainbow flames, flooding the Buried Continent with colour. She felt that the ceiling was in reach, that fake sky of a thousand-million glow-worms. How high up was it, she wondered? A mile? Two miles? The distance felt like nothing, for she hurried up her vast new firebow, her paws striking against red and yellow and green and blue and purple. The fire was warm under her paws. This is what eating starlight must have felt like, she thought, or drinking brightest moonlight.
Scootawolf was by the ceiling. She ran rainbows around stalactites and brushed a hoof against glow-worm stars. Now she was close to the roof, she saw that it, too, was formed from crystal. It was smooth as glass and navy-purple-black. It was the colour of mysteries.
Photo Dash’s words sounded in her head, along with those of her parents, and her aunts and her friends.
“We love you.”
“We love you.”
“We love you.”
At last, her legs ran out of running and her eyelids turned heavy. The tiredness came from nowhere: a smash of sleepiness. But she was only a little emberwolf pup, after all, and there is only so much fire a child can make…
Yet it wasn’t an unpleasant type of tiredness. Scootawolf searched inside of herself and discovered the energy for one last firebow. She aimed downwards and breathed a long thin rainbow slide, which descended all the way through the air of the Buried Continent and towards the hill. Even from the star-ceiling, the hill was easy to spot. It was like a ruby island in the ocean of crystal trees, guarded by a giant burning wolf.
She slid down, down, the rushing wind in her fur and tail and ears.
Her paws touched the red glowing earth, and the Emberwolf looked at her. The beast was trembling.
“How did you do that?” the Emberwolf whispered. “Tell me.”
Scootawolf grinned sleepily at her. “With the part of me that makes me me,” she said.